Evansville's new police chief seeks to serve others and aims for the impossible

FILE - In this photo from Jan. 16, 2012, then newly elected Evansville Police Chief Billy Bolin takes a phone call from Cpl. Mike Winters, who is accused of grabbing an Evansville student's crotch during an incident in May. The Evansville Police Merit Commission fired Winters on Monday after a 2-1 vote that followed a six-hour hearing. It was Bolin's recommendation that Winters be terminated.

2011 Jason Clark

JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS
Billy Bolin organizes items in his new office hours before taking on the role as new chief of police in Evansville on Dec., 31, 2011. Bolin has been a member of the Evansville Police Department for 13 years and was named the Indiana Association of Chiefs Police Officer of the Year in 2009.

2011 Jason Clark

JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS
Billy Bolin, Evansville's new, organizes items in his new office hours before taking on the role as new chief of police in Evansville on Dec., 31, 2011. Bolin has been a member of the Evansville Police Department for 13 years and was awarded the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award along with fellow officer Paul Kirby in 2005.

2011 Jason Clark

JASON CLARK / COURIER & PRESS
Billy Bolin, Evansville's next police chief, organizes items in his new office hours before taking on the role as new chief of police in Evansville Saturday, Dec., 31, 2011. Bolin has been a member of the Evansville Police Department for 13 years.

2011 Jason Clark

EVANSVILLE - One of the biggest framed posters in the office Billy Bolin, Evansville's new police chief, is one of a barren Florida landscape.

But there's a translucent image superimposed on the lot: Walt Disney stands next to his Disney World resort, and the caption below reads, "Vision: ‘It's kind of fun to do the impossible.'"

People close to Bolin believe some of the Disney buff's accomplishments are, at the very least, improbable. In addition to leaping four rank levels from sergeant to chief at age 38, Bolin envisioned (and eventually built) a popular playground when he was a fourth-year EPD officer nearly a decade ago.

But what's more remarkable about Bolin, friends and family members said, is that those seemingly impossible things he accomplishes usually aren't for himself. He is a servant at heart, they said, far beyond what the badge calls for and they believe service will mark his tenure as chief.

"I don't know how he does it," said Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Nick Hermann, a longtime friend of Bolin's speaking about his charity work. "I don't know how he finds the time."

Hermann said Bolin had some major accomplishments before becoming chief.

The personable, God-fearing man is the de facto leader of "911 Gives Hope," a nonprofit charity organization that has raised and donated more than $300,000 in its four years of existence.

He's won several local awards for his work there, work that includes throwing one of the most popular charity events in the area — a firefighters-versus-police boxing event called "Gun & Hoses."

The Harrison High School graduate and colleague Paul Kirby were recipients of the 2005 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis award, a national award that's often called the "Nobel Prize for public service."

They were honored for building Kids Kingdom, a 12,000-square-foot playground in Sunrise Park. They raised more than $130,000 and recruited some 1,300 volunteer-hours to help build it.

"I don't know where he got all those people," said Bolin's former high school teacher Jim McCutchan, who was involved in building a park in Scott Township around the same time. "He got more people than I could get."

The magnitude of what Bolin has done with respect to service is probably a result of his admiration for Disney, said Bolin's wife, Mitzi, which in turn came from a disastrous honeymoon at Magic Kingdom.

The couple's trip to the Lake Buena Vista, Fla., resort in the summer of 1995 included crashing in a hotel with no air conditioning, getting stuck on a sweltering monorail for about an hour and Mitzi Bolin getting food poisoning.

Before the family's next trip there, Billy Bolin not only studied the resort, but also Disney, becoming an enthusiast in the process, his wife said.

That may have help form his characteristic of attempting the "impossible," she said. His passion for serving people would come later as a police officer.

A special ‘Thank you'

Bolin took interest in law enforcement after becoming a loss prevention officer at Kmart, a job he held from about 1990 to 1995.

During that time, Bolin took classes at Vincennes University and the University of Southern Indiana, but didn't get a degree, though he said he plans to "at some point."

He joined the Henderson Police Department in 1995 and the Evansville Police Department in 1998, but the event that sparked his interest in off-duty service came in 2001 when he received what he called one of the "greatest gifts" ever at an elementary school Christmas party he coordinated.

"A little kindergarten girl came up to me with an orange in her hand, smiling from ear to ear, and thanked me for giving her an orange," he told the Courier & Press in 2001.

That ‘thank you' taught him that little things can mean a lot, he said. It wasn't long before small acts of service spawned dreams of doing bigger acts of service, and Disney's example encouraged him to try them.

"When he showed me where he wanted to build Kids Kingdom," said Mitzi Bolin about her husband's 2002 idea, "I laughed at him."

Two years, hundreds of volunteers and about $130,000 later, she told her husband: "I will never laugh nor say ‘No you won't.'"

Kid's Kingdom attracted officer Patrick Phernetton, who has a daughter with a disease that makes her constantly feel hungry. Phernetton told Bolin about an idea for a charity boxing event, the proceeds of which would benefit children with Prader-Willi syndrome and other charitable causes.

Phernetton sought Bolin because of his fundraising prowess and charitable spirit, he said.

In 2008, the two threw the first Guns & Hoses event, which drew a sellout crowd of about 1,000 and raised about $22,000. In 2011, about 7,000 people came and the charity group raised $100,000.

The charity efforts of 911 Gives Hope snowballed from 2008 on, and the organization now raises money from its "5K Hope Run," a music concert called "Music for Mickey," and a demolition derby called "Crashing for Kids." The group raised about $125,000 in 2011.

The group also hosts the "Hope for the Holidays" toy drive, which provides toys to hospitalized children all year round.

"Billy is instrumental in all of that," said Phernetton, noting that several people are involved in 911 Gives Hope.

"But his organizational skills are what helps pull it all off."

Promoting service

Bolin's achievements with 911 Gives Hope have helped scores of Tri-State children and adults with disabilities, and people close to Bolin said his achievement of becoming chief will also be to the benefit of others.

Bolin said: "I don't want this to run the police department. I want this to make things better."

Bolin, whom his wife called "imaginative," said he wants to serve officers and the public by amending the way some things are done at the police department.

One goal is to make officer discipline as transparent as possible. Bolin said he was unhappy with the way the previous administration handled the case of David Fehrenbacher, a former officer who the department alleged stopped a female driver unreasonably and made improper comments toward her.

Fehrenbacher was given the maximum 21-day suspension, according to internal disciplinary documents obtained by the Courier & Press, but that suspension was withdrawn and Fehrenbacher resigned Sept. 1.

"We can't go into detail at the beginning," said Bolin about cases involving possible officer wrongdoing, "but I want to be the one who breaks the news to you that we have that, instead of, a month later, you guys knocking on my doorstep asking, ‘How come we don't know about this?'"

Bolin said he also plans to give more power to officers near the bottom of the rank scale, increase collaboration among divisions and make himself as visible as possible to the public, the media and "his troops."

"He'll be an officers' chief," said Capt. Robert Shoultz, Bolin's former field-training officer at the Henderson Police Department.

But one of his biggest goals, Bolin said, is to promote a culture of service among officers, on- and off-duty. Acquaintances, including Hermann, said Bolin probably won't have to do much to encourage such efforts.

"He's one of those people that you're around and it makes you a better person," Hermann said . "When you see the effort he puts into something, when you see how pure his motives are, it makes you a better person."